Publish Something on 'Replacement Theory,' And You're in Danger - New Bill Promises
As a congressional Democrat, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee might personify the modern vision of her party better than even President Joe Biden.
She’s ignorant to the point of absurdity when it comes to issues like guns. She’s dishonest to the point of delirium when it comes to issues like the border.
And, as a bill Jackson Lee has introduced into the 118th Congress shows, when it comes to respecting Americans’ freedom of speech, she’s spitting on the Founders’ memory.
In her latest move to make a name, the Houston Democrat is the sponsor of the Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023, a monstrosity of legislation that would literally outlaw speech that conflicts with current Democratic views on human behavior.
Supposedly aimed at “white supremacy” — a force that exists in American politics pretty much only in the fevered minds of deluded leftists — the bill openly declares that its goal is to “expand the scope of hate crimes” by including factors such as material alleged perpetrators might have published before engaging in activities that “constituted a crime or were undertaken in furtherance of activity that, if effectuated, would have constituted a crime.”
That all sounds forbiddingly legalistic, but what it boils down to is that Americans who engage in conduct Sheila Jackson Lee and her supporters don’t like would be in danger of being charged with a “white supremacy inspired hate crime” if at least one of them has also published anything Jackson Lee and her supporters don’t like.
In particular, the bill cites material “based on ‘replacement theory’, or hate speech that vilifies or is otherwise directed against any non-White person or group, and such published material—” that “was published on a social media platform or by other means of publication with the likelihood that it would be viewed by persons who are predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime, or who are susceptible to being encouraged to engage in actions in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime.”
Those are words that are vague enough to mean anything at all that a creative prosecutor chooses to make them mean. And if nothing else, Americans have learned that progressive law enforcement is creative enough to find a serious crime to charge against conservatives when it wants to — even when a minor charge or no charge at all is far more suited to the occasion.
Federal prosecutors have treated defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion like they were Fifth Columnists in World War II while the FBI appears to be diligently avoiding anything like an arrest in the nationwide attacks on pregnancy centers that followed the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade last summer.
If any of these defendants had published anything that could even be construed as “replacement theory” — the idea that non-white races are being brought into the U.S. through illegal and legal immigration deliberately to replace Caucasians as the dominant demographic — they could be slapped with a federal charge of engaging in white supremacy under Jackson Lee’s bill.
Note, too, the scope of the bill — encompassing not only “social media” and every other form of publication, but also the audience involved, as potentially “predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime, or who are susceptible to being encouraged to engage in actions in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime.”
So, the speaker is responsible for the “predispositions” of his audience?
In short, the crime criminalizes speech — the expression of an idea.
The First Amendment specifically, and in black-letter law, prohibits Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech.” Jackson Lee’s bill, in black-letter law, would do exactly the opposite, putting Congress on the side of suppressing and actually punishing speech.
The merits or demerits of “replacement theory” aren’t the issue here. (The long history of humanity is pretty much nothing but “replacement theory” writ large. No creation of human hands is immutable.)
What matters here is the constitutionally obscene — and literally un-American — idea that a law can be written to punish speech “that vilifies or is otherwise directed against any non-White person or group.” Such a law protecting any “White” group would be just as obscene.
Jackson Lee’s law would place the federal government in the position of arbiter of what Americans can say — and make those judgments dependent in part at least on the skin color of the speaker and the skin color of the subjects.
It would be an abrogation not only of the First Amendment itself, but the centuries of legal precedent that have followed. It would be an uprooting of one of the foundational guarantees of the United States — the right to free speech.
And it would be spitting on the memory and legacy of the brilliant minds that enshrined the rights of individuals to speak, worship and defend themselves in the manner that they choose.
In recent years, from the “Twitter Files” to the doors of American businesses to the Supreme Court, Democrats have revealed themselves to be openly against all three.
Of course, with the House of Representatives in Republican hands, thank the Lord, Jackson Lee’s bill has no chance of advancement, but the fact that it exists at all should be a warning.
The modern Democratic Party, under its modern leadership, is a clear and present danger to the United States Constitution.
And Jackson Lee, with more than a quarter-century in the halls of the Capitol, is living proof.
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